Snow White bites the apple offered by the old woman and she is placed into a deep slumber until Prince Mikael wakes her with true love's kiss- but this is all of the normal fairy tale that you will find in That Risen Snow.  Snow White wakes up, but she isn't acting right and immediately takes a bite out of Prince Mikael.  As Snow White spreads her disease, the dwarves try to fight back only to be taken down themselves. The dwarves believe that a cure can be found to save their beloved Snow in a nearby town, but trying to survive the Horrors to get to the town proves harder than they thought.  Along with the Prince's soldiers, the remaining dwarves make it to town only to find that Snow's curse is bigger than they thought. 

I loved the idea of Snow White mixed with zombie;  bringing parts of the well known fairy-tale together with nightmarish horror. My favorite parts were some of the flashbacks to Snow White's past; we learn she wasn't the perfect little Princess in this version of the story.  The dwarves history is also very interesting. I liked learning about how they came to be and how they earned their names; these dwarves are far from perfect also.  The narration begins with Grumpy the dwarf, he probably has the strongest voice and character.  However, the point of view skips around through all of the other dwarves, the Prince, the soldiers and the Queen.  All this jumping around provided a few too many voices, I think it would have been more effective sticking to one point of view.  The twist at the end was a surprise to me, I'm glad that the story will continue and it seems like we will get to learn more of the Queen.  

This book was provided for free in return for an honest review.  

Seven short stories (one, very short!) that tell the darker side of well known fairy tales.  Tied together by the theme of the monstrous feminine, these re-tellings throw away the idea that the Princess needs to be saved, since she is usually the one creating the carnage.  

I liked the idea that the women in the fairy tales were each a different kind of evil force from zombies, to vampire-like creatures and worse.  Each story offered something a little different.  My favorite stories were "Tower in Moonlight, " a re-telling of Rapunzel where her hair is more than a ladder; and, "Kiss of Life," a Sleeping Beauty re-telling where the Princess should not be waked under any circumstances.  

This book was received for free in return for an honest review. 

Growing up in the small, secluded and impoverished Elton Township on Michigan's Upper Peninsula, Kenny and his best friend Mason, aka Lucky try to make the best of life. Lucky earns his nickname by being  able to talk his way out of anything and by being able to seemingly bend people to his will by his voice.  Kenny's uncle starts to notice Lucky going out to Grove Island with a sack, a sack of live animals that he sacrifices to the large Pine tree on the island. From there, Kenny's uncle, the mayor and the policeman realize that Lucky has unearthed something evil and drive him out of town.  Years later, Kenny returns to Elton Township with his kids after the death of his wife, he finds that his childhood friend has also returned to release the full extent of the force that resides on Grove Island.

This book is very strange and disturbing, not one for the faint of heart. In the first part of the book, the suspense builds.  Kenny and Lucky's characters are reunited after many years, and then their past together is explored.  Lucky is a very interesting character, the son of the local Reverend, but with a highly manipulative personality.  At first I didn't know if Lucky was just overly charismatic and a bit of a sociopath, or if something else was going on.  The transitions between the past backstory and the present happening were a little choppy for me, I think it would have been better just to keep a chronological time line. At about the halfway point, when we return to the present, things start getting gory and perverse fairly quickly.  Lucky's talents increase exponentially when he returns to Elton Township and he creates mayhem.  I did like the overall idea of the story, but it could use some better execution.  I think it would have been interesting to delve deeper into the history of the force on Grove Island as a horror aspect rather than relying on suspense and shock value.

This book was received for free in return for an honest review.